Butterfly Count how many butterflies have you seen?

If there are any Butterfly Spotters in Pontarddulais, Swansea please share your information and knowledge on butterflies. The Butterfly Conservation are doing a Butterfly Count and we need as many people as possible to get involved and log all your butterfly sightings. I adore butterflies! So when I picked up the Gardeners' World, which had the very sad title "Save our butterflies," I was horrified. But on the up side this could save our School Butterfly Meadow. I believe the school butterfly meadow is the reason why I have been able to photograph four beautiful butterflies in our garden last year and why we have pretty butterflies this year. For years I would look outside in the garden searching for just one coloured butterfly with no luck. But then last year my luck changed.



The school butterfly meadow is full of stinging nettles which is the ideal food for caterpillars. It also has holly which butterflies lay their eggs on. The meadow is full of grasses and flowers which attract butterflies and bumble bees. Here are some butterflies I have photographed in the school butterfly meadow: Large Skipper, Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown, Gatekeeper, Green-veined white and my friend who is scared of butterflies managed to photograph the beautiful Holly blue butterfly:





In a space of one week I saved two Tortoiseshell butterflies. One got stuck in our kitchen window behind the tomato plant. And the other one, poor thing had been stuck in my friends house. And she hates butterflies so the cat could have very nearly eaten it. I went round there this week got an old broom as I could not reach him and managed to get him into a glass jar and the children let him fly free.

The Red Admiral butterfly flew into our back garden yesterday and lay in the sun on the paving stones. I had just enough time to get my camcorder and film him before he flew away. My garden has no stinging nettles or holly so I believe he was born in the school butterfly meadow.

When I got to photograph the Peacock butterfly it was a very magical moment indeed. What a stunning butterfly. I am going to make sure I plant some stinging nettles and holly in our garden so we can study the caterpillars. We all ready have wooden logs on the ground, which I read in Gardener's Magazine is very good for hibernating butterflies.

As you can see in the picture below I got to photograph a butterfly cocoon right in front of the school in the butterfly meadow. If you would like to help save the school butterfly meadow and school field for the children please leave a message of hope!

Copy this picture below and hand out to all your friends and ask them to join in the butterfly count.

I hope to have a wonderful butterfly garden this year and hopefully it will attract different butterflies to lay their eggs in our garden so we can sit back and take in the beauty of nature. Counting butterflies and finding out their names is a very magical adventure for children. Make a child happy and save this wonderful fragile creature our butterfly. And any support in saving Pontarddulais School butterfly meadow and school playing field would be so appreciated! Lets give children a childhood to remember less concrete and more green grass and butterflies.

www.bigbutterflycount.org

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